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Youth

Taiwan is a young country, and the main audience of its cinema is similarly young. Taiwanese cinema is constantly refreshed by this youthful energy, a... (Read more)

Taiwan is a young country, and the main audience of its cinema is similarly young. Taiwanese cinema is constantly refreshed by this youthful energy, and thus constantly reflecting the hopes and dreams of the nation’s youth, revealing untold new worlds.

The documentary Jump! Boys (2005) might be the most dynamic film since Taiwan New Cinema thrived in the 1980s. A group of elementary school boys from different backgrounds and of distinct personalities forms a gymnastics team, and with the strict training of their coach, these boys leap over life’s obstacles to achieve great things. This documentary is also seen a warm-up for the rejuvenation of Taiwanese cinema in 2008 and later, including 2008’s Orz Boyz This coming-of-age film features two boys who bid farewell to their childhood after experiencing loss and separation. These two boys are forced to enter the “real world”, seeing through the lies told by adults and accepting the dark side of life. The bitterness of initiation was previously addressed in 1995’s Tropical Fish, which depicts local ordinary people with over-the-top comedy that masks harsh social criticism. For example, it judges the rote-memorization orientation of the academic exam system for stifling the enthusiasm of youth, while also featuring a young dropout yearning to take those same exams, illustrating the sharp difference between urban and rural Taiwan.

Taiwanese films focusing on young people usually highlight subculture. For example, Kung Fu Dunk (2009), starring pop idol Jay Chou, combines Chinese martial arts and basketball to create a combined idol story and heroic narrative. Stars (2008) follows a popular reality-singing competition series, building a heroic narrative from the trials and tribulations of the competitors. With the political landscape at the time turbulent, the show and documentary provided de-politicized escapism. Gangster Rock (2010), meanwhile, vacuously blends rock music, underworld gangsters, and fandom of Japanese and American idols.

At the same time, Winds of September (2008) and Monga (2010) embrace a stronger concern with social issues. The former, set in 1990s Taiwan when the professional baseball league was falling apart due to corruption, evokes the sense of loss that comes with growing up and reflects on post-millennial political disillusionment. The latter not only touches on growing up and issues of identity, but also figuratively addresses Taiwan’s recent political history. The plot concerns a traditional gang being replaced by a new, profit-oriented gang, an allegory for the historical political oppression by the Kuomintang of “local” Taiwanese. These two films are both extensions on past works from the Taiwan New Cinema of the 1980s, specifically Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s coming-of-age stories The Time to Live and The Time to Die (1985) and Dust in the Wind (1986). The former explores self-identity of second generation children of Chinese who arrived in Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War, using autobiographical narration. The latter describes a dichotomy between urban city, Taipei, and rural township, Jiufen, along with the progressive violence that accompanies modernization, industrialization, and urbanization in Taiwan. The young characters in these two films carry heavy burden of history, quite different from the carefree ones depicted in contemporary films.